FIFA Women's World Cup
(3rd title) | number_of_teams = 24 (finals) | most_successful_club = (3 titles) | current = 2019 | website = https://www.fifa.com/womensworldcup/index.html }} The FIFA Women's World Cup is an international football competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the sport's international governing body. The competition has been held every four years since 1991. History Before the formation of FIFA Women's World Cup, several unofficial women's football tournaments had been held. In 1970, the first unofficial Women's World Cup was held in Italy. The tournament continued in 1971, this time hosted by Mexico. Both of the tournaments were won by Denmark. The tournament was succeeded by the series of Mundialito tournaments throughout the 1980s in Italy. In 1988, FIFA organized an invitational tournament in China as a test to see if global Women's World Cup was feasible. Twelve teams took part in this tournament. The tournament saw Norway as the champions after they beat Sweden in the final. The tournament was deemed a success and FIFA approved the establishment of an official World Cup, which would take place in 1991 again in China. 12 teams competed in this first ever official Women's World Cup. Six female referees or assistant referees were appointed among match officials for the first time in FIFA history. The United States claimed the first-ever Women's World Cup title, beating Norway 2–1 in the final, which took place at Guangzhou's Tianhe Stadium. The next edition of Women's World Cup was held in 1995 in Sweden. FIFA experimented with the time-out concept for the first time at this Women's World Cup. The provisional rule allowed each team to call one two-minute break per half, but only about one in three such breaks were actually taken. Norway beat Germany in the final to clinch the Women's World Cup trophy. The final was refereed by Ingrid Jonsson from Sweden, the first women to referee a FIFA final match. In the 1999 edition, one of the most famous moments of the tournament was American defender Brandi Chastain's victory celebration after scoring the Cup-winning penalty kick against China. She took off her jersey and waved it over her head (as men frequently do), showing her muscular torso and sports bra as she celebrated. The 1999 final in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California had an attendance of 90,185, a world record for a women's sporting event. Format The final tournament has featured between twelve and twenty-four national teams competing over about one month in the host nation(s). There are two stages: the group stage followed by the knockout stage. In the group stage, teams are drawn into groups of four teams each. Each group plays a round-robin tournament, in which each team is scheduled for three matches against other teams in the same group. The last round of matches of each group is scheduled at the same time to preserve fairness among all four teams. The two teams finishing first and second in each group and the four best teams among those ranked third qualify for the round of 16, also called the knockout stage. Points are used to rank the teams within a group, three points have been awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss. The knockout stage is a single-elimination tournament in which teams play each other in one-off matches, with extra time and penalty shootouts used to decide the winner if necessary. It begins with the round of 16. This is followed by the quarter-finals, semi-finals, the third-place match (contested by the losing semi-finalists), and the final. Hosts and results No extra time was played. Teams reaching the top four External links * FIFA official site * UEFA's page on the FIFA Women's World Cup * RSSSF's pages Category:FIFA Women's World Cup